Jacob Appelbaum is a a perfect match for Debian both in terms of technical skills and in terms of compatibility with ours spirit and free software values. I thus recommend Jacob as a Debian Developer. 1. Identification & Account Data -------------------------------- First name: Jacob Middle name: - Last name: Appelbaum Account: ioerror 2. Background ------------- I became aware of Linux in the late 90s. My first install was on a PowerPC 7200/90; I'd met a very nice hacker named Jason Haas at Linux world in San Francisco while still in High School. Jason gave me literally over one hundred Linux PPC install CDs to hand out to people in my community. He helped me configure X over the telephone from California to his home in Wisconsin. The very idea that a total stranger would help another person with their computer or that the same computer would run on software written by thousands of such people absolutely blew my mind! To this day, I remember that I felt honored by Jason. His desire to help me understand Linux was driven by a new trend that has since appeared in nearly all human societies around the globe. He was an early example of a Free Software hacker in my life experience. Free Software as a philosophy was something I'd read about after some Linux use and I admit that at first, I didn't really understand all of the wisdom involved in software licensing. I was quite interested in system administration, computer programming and computer security while I was in college. Both of those interests led me to take a course that focused on Linux as a platform. It was perhaps luck or the well connected nature of the Free Software world that struck me that year. I had a classmate who introduced me to the real core philosophy behind the GPL and Free Software as a whole. That year, my classmate brought me to San Francisco again and I met Richard Stallman. It was an intense lunch. He personally explained the ideas behind the GPL to me over our meal. I was surprised that he ate meat but in actuality, not very much beyond that was surprising to me. His explanations of Free Software moved me and I realized that it was an important cause; it's a cause that touches everyone in the information age and it's a cause that helps to empower everyone. It was a very inspiring moment in my life. This is when Linux became Gnu/Linux in my mind. I believe at the time, Richard was planning on becoming a Debian developer himself. At the time I was certainly not ready to contribute to Debian but my interest in Free Software grew from that point. It was not simply about computers after that moment - my life was changed by the people who had shown me a new path. This change has brought me great joy and it pleases me to work on Free Software related systems. It is fun to understand the systems that move our world. It is even more fun to help create them! I want to continue this trend. I have been using Debian for many years now and I feel that it important to help the project. It is gratifying to package software for Debian or to help improve Debian in any way that I am able. I hope to learn new skills along the way and to learn new ways to apply those skills to help improve Debian. As of today, I have packaged four pieces of software for Debian, I've mentioned those packages above. They're all part of the Debian forensics subproject. There are many other pieces of upstream software that I look forward to writing. I specifically have an interest in helping Debian with Security, Privacy and Anonymity. A primary goal of mine is to someday become part of the Debian Security team. Another is to help package security, privacy and anonymity software. Yet another is to help spread the adoption of Free Software in an effort to supplant non-free platforms and non-free software programs. My day/night job focuses on Free Software; I am employed by the Tor Project as a developer and advocate. I regularly help people to use Free Software and I author Free Software that I believe enables people to do so. I am a firm believer in free speech and freedom of expression. In my private life, I am also a researcher and a founder of a public non-profit hacklab in San Francisco called Noisebridge. As a researcher in Noisebridge, I started the Cold Boot Attack project (which is directly related my packaging efforts). This project won both a USENIX Security Best Student Paper award (though I am not a student in the formal academic sense) and a pwnie award at the Black Hat conference in 2008. More information on this project can be found on our project website: http://citp.princeton.edu/memory/ In late 2008 myself and a team of researchers helped to break the x509 trust root for nearly every SSL/TLS user on the internet. Our research served as a practical example of how to attack a real world system that utilized a broken hash function. Our team was able to create a Rogue Certificate authority with the help of 200 Play Station 3 machines. Our CA was able to make valid (though intentionally expired) signatures for any domain on the internet. This research won us best paper at Crypto 2009; sadly, we were disqualified for a pwnie award because one of the judges was a co-author. More information can be found on the project website: http://www.win.tue.nl/hashclash/rogue-ca/ In one of many roles as a member of Noisebridge, I help to promote and advance the use and creation of Free Software. As a group, we also bridge another divide and encourage people to create, use and embrace Free Hardware.
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